Young Writers Society

Dear John,

You have been on my mind more then ever these past 283 days since we parted. Our memories are overwhelming and abundant, which makes it even harder for me to push them out of consciousness. Do you remember how we went down? It wasn't all because of that package you sent me, although that does have something to do with it. I guess mainly it was all because of the fact we were to young to be making such a huge commitment. Fully committing our lives to each other without exploring our other options would have caused problems for our future -- which now doesn't exist. This is not the purpose of this letter to you though...the real reason for writing to you is because I have been struggling with mountains of "what if's". Right as I reach the summit of the mountain currently on my radar, another one, taller then the previous, comes into view.

For example: what if I would have surrendered to your request to have sex? How would our lives today be different? Would this sexual commitment have been enough to hold us together -- or would it have tore us apart sooner? Let's say I did surrender...could this have led to something heavier?

This is the mountain that I am most frequently forced to climb. I often wonder the consequences of the path we chose to take compared to the road we could have traveled down. Though I almost always come to the conclusion that the road and path eventually would have joined back together at the same destiny somewhere on the map.

So I guess we will never know. Mainly because I am not willing to try again, but also because I think I already know the direction each of us is heading. We are both on one-way streets that go in opposite directions.

Yours truly,
Melody

I REALLY enjoyed this
Maybe you could make it into a book, like as in them sending letters to each other or something. I don't know. It could be unique.
It might become boring to readers, so if you use that idea you might want to sauce up their lives or something.
Just a suggestion

Okay, I like what you have here. The letter thing works, but I really think you should change the title and John's name. If you aren't already aware of this, there is movie and book by Nicholas Sparks entitled "Dear John". It also happens to be about two people sending letters to each other, but it's slightly different from yours. When I read this, for the first half of the story I couldn't help but think of the movie until you spoke about the "what ifs" and it was clear to me it wasn't some sort of fanfiction. I personally haven't read the book, but you may want to check that out to make sure readers won't get sidetracked when reading your wonderful piece. As far as the letter itself goes, you put a lot of emotion into it along with other information that makes the writer's life/letter seem believable. Congrats on that! It was a interesting read and had a twist that I hadn't expected. Anyways, keep on sending letters! Maybe I'll find your maybe novel one day on a bookshelf in the library.

-Crescent

I was a little lost wih this one,I'm not sure the reason for their parting is 100% clear, maybe you intended for it to be that way.

It's well presented, doesn't seem too angsty, more reflective and mature (again I'm assuming this girl is young).

If she is older I think it could come across as slighty naive and if she ended it partly because of exploring other options and then also because of his request for sex thats strikes me as a little contradictory (I can not think of many other options that you could not partake it with a partner).

Overall and ingaging story that I'd certainly like to hear more from, perhaps exploring the situation from Johns angle and his perception of events.

Hey guys thanks for your feedback.

I was aware of the movie/book "Dear John" but when I wrote this I completely forgot the book and movie even existed! I was writing this out of the irony of what a Dear John letter really is. If the title bothers people though, I'll change the name :]

Now for more explaining: The girl writing the letter is young [16 or 17ish] and yes there are more reasons for why they parted. I just didn't want to say to much in this letter because if I write the story then it would all be spoiled ;] and if the story continues I would tell it from both John's point-of-view and Melody's.

-Jessa